


Eternal

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:19:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15568560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: as much as I hate it, I do love reading a good older M/S fic. Would you ever consider writing something about them being older and dealing with the death of one of them? It sounds morbid, I know, but we like to imagine so much for them and I’ve read so few who can accurately and sensitively approach this whole still creating something poignant and beautiful.





	Eternal

There’s a man who visits sometimes. Just shows up, like he’s slipped in on the moonlight. He’s gentle like soft light too, sitting on the chair, bathed in silver, silent. He never speaks and at first Mulder thought he was a spirit, a guardian angel watching over him. He tells Scully and she dismisses him. Tells him there’s nobody there, that she’s the only one who sits in that chair. But he knows it means something. A sign, a portent. A benevolent omen.

“It’s my reading chair, Mulder. You know that. You insist I sit there because it catches the light through the blinds and,” she says, folding back his sheet, “you tell me that it turns my hair the colour of copper, the way it used to shine.”

He captures her hand and looks at their joint fingers, interlocked. A kiss on her knuckles, one by one. “It’s true, Scully. You had the most glorious hair.”

“And now it’s just white.”

“Silver, Scully. It’s the colour of spun silver and moon strands and starlight and when you’re outside in the wind, it streams behind you and you look like a warrior queen. I see you holding up your staff to the gods and screaming.” The effort of talking takes its toll and he flops his head back onto the pillows.

She sits on the edge of the bed and chuffs out a laugh. “You see me outside with the yard broom, Mulder, sweeping up those leaves. And if I’m screaming, it’s just me… well, never mind. You need to rest.”

Her wrist is tiny in his grip. She’s lost weight. Worry would do that. Outside, there’s a rush of wind and a flurry of leaves falls. “It’s just you what, Scully?”

She lays her head on his shoulder. He can hear his own heartbeat in his ears and he feels hers through the skin that separates them. “It’s just me yelling for more time, Mulder. There hasn’t been enough time.”

Lengths of her hair fall around her shoulders and he strokes, coarser now than years before, and wavy. “I think I’ve more than outstayed my welcome.”

There’s a sound, somewhere between a cry and a laugh, and they stay like that for a while, until her neck creaks and he feels sleep tug at his eyelids. “It’s not fair that one of us has to leave first.”

The pain in his spine travels up and down, increases and decreases. Sometimes it’s deep, invading his marrow, his thought-processes. Other times it radiates outwards, spreading to his limbs and he can’t get comfortable however he positions himself. But when he’s close to Scully, touching her, the pain diminishes and he’s grateful for her palliative effect. She’s told him it’s all in his mind, her placebo effect, but he doesn’t care. Some days, when it’s bad, she slips in beside him, presses her body to his, and soothes him to sleep, skin to skin, like a mother and newborn, bonded physically and emotionally.

Later, in the early grey of dawn, the man is in the chair again. Mulder reaches out a hand and the man smiles, nods. He’s so familiar but before Mulder can ask why he comes, he fades out on the first rays of sunshine. Outside, an owl hoots.

The doctor recommended a hospice. Scully found one, told him it was a beautiful spot, willow trees bowing into lakes, a Japanese garden, Monet reproductions on the bedroom walls. He shook his head as she listed its attributes.

“I’m not dying in someone else’s vision of heaven, Scully. I’m dying right here, with you by my side. And if I need a little help, you can do that for me.” She didn’t flinch at the suggestion. She gripped the bridge of her nose, pressing away the uncomfortable necessity of planning that the state didn’t allow. “I want to be at home. I need to be at home.”

She makes awful soup. It’s thin and watery, under-seasoned, full of soft vegetables and lentils. He never complains though, just takes forever to finish it so that she stays longer with him. Often, she eats with him, but never much. She rubs at her temples, pinches her nose, squeezes her eyes shut.

“Do you remember that case, the one with the ageing sailors, Mulder?”

“The USS Ardent? Trondheim. You tried to make me drink sardine juice and snow globe water.” His body is spent, but his memory is as capacious as ever.

“I think we aged better,” she says, picking at the skin on the back of her hand. Liver spots and veins, lined knuckles. “Didn’t we?”

He chuckles, putting the spoon down. “You did. And don’t forget, Scully, you’re immortal. You can scream at the gods with your staff and streaming hair and I can watch from wherever I find myself, comforted by that.”

There are tears sparkling in her eyes. “You would be happy to spend your eternity watching me rage at God?”

“Isn’t that a fair summation of our life together?”

She cuffs at her nose. “We did laugh too.”

“In graveyards and in the rain.” He watches her mouth struggle to smile. “Come here, Scully.” He pats the space beside him. She climbs under the sheet. “I’m not immortal, Mulder. I don’t want to be.”

He nods. “When you had your visions, what were they like?”

“Painful, like a vice squeezing my head. My heart would race, my skin tingle. I could see him whether I had my eyes open or shut. It was like a movie playing in my mind. Why?”

“I see William. In the chair, there. I didn’t realise who it was at first. But it’s him.”

“You think you’re seeing his ghost?”

“But he’s older. I don’t think he died at the pier. I think he’s come to say goodbye.”

She sighs. “Why don’t I see him?”

There’s a comfortable silence, a moment where there’s nothing to say but it speaks volumes. “It’ll be time soon, Scully.”

“No, Mulder.”

He presses his lips to her forehead. “I don’t want you to have to feed me or bathe me. I don’t want to be that much of a burden to you. I know it’s coming. And I’m tired now. So tired. I think William has come to make his peace and I feel ready.”

She sobs openly. He cries with her. It stings, it cuts. But folded together, he knows it’s right for them. And she knows too, he knows she does.

At the end of autumn, rain falls, dampening the remaining leaves that cling to the branches. Every day through November, they’ve spent together in the bed, clinging to each other. He chose the day of his sister’s disappearance because it seemed fitting. Make that date more meaningful.

At some time during the early hours, Mulder notices the room is lighter, glowing. He’s cooler too. Scully is sitting on the edge of the bed, hair falling down her back. He reaches out to her, pressing his palm to the small of her back, his spot.

She turns. “He’s here, Mulder. William’s here.”

He struggles to sit but when he does, the chair is empty.

There’s a comfort to know the end is of your choosing. They don’t talk. She’s prepared everything on the outside, the external necessities. And he’s prepared everything on the inside. She makes him comfortable and slips in beside him, leaning into him. She kisses him for the last time. She reaches to the dresser and gives him a cup. She holds one in her own hand, rubbing at that same spot on the bridge of her nose.

“What’s this Scully?”

“It’s my time too, Mulder.”

In his mind, her hair is longer, wilder, the colour of copper, flying free on the wind as she raises her arm in salutation to the gods. He’s right by her side and he lifts his own arms, fingers outstretched to the silvery light. At last.


End file.
